Last week, when the City Council first laid its eyes on renderings for the $325 million Convention Center expansion, there wasn't a lot of negative reaction to the envisaged building itself.

Still, the council's feelings were hurt.

What erupted was a debate among council members over how much input they should have had on the design.

In a presentation by Populous, the national designer of convention centers and sports facilities, the grand entrance would face Market Street just east of the Grand Hyatt San Antonio hotel.

It's angular, window-paned façade is reminiscent of a “Star Trek” ship — not of the United Federation of Planets but of the Ferengi. A portion of the second floor meeting space, and a third floor balcony above it, protrudes 1½ lanes above Market Street.

It's definitely ambitious. And it should appease those who yearn for more modern architecture and not more of the brown and beige color schemes of downtown's iconic structures.

Council members were told the design is pretty much set, which left a lot of them asking why they were just now taking a gander.

District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal took the initial stab, and then District 9 Councilwoman Elisa Chan grabbed the knife.

“This is a San Antonio iconic structure,” Chan said. “Is this building going to be designed by consultants or the citizens of San Antonio?”

Bernal was a little bit more succinct.

“The inside is for visitors,” Bernal said, “but the outside is for us because we live with it everyday.”

District 8 Councilman W. Reed Williams, on the other hand, never expected to have input on the renderings.

In design-build construction, he reminded the room, there is velocity to the process. Construction of the expansion, for example, is scheduled to begin September, less than three months away.

“From my perspective, once we hit that button on the design-build, I wasn't going to see it until now,” Williams said.

He's right. The concept of expanding the Convention Center east and demolishing the original 1968 structure was approved by council long ago.